Some of you might know it already, others might have to consult the glossary to find out what FTBFS means. We are talking about packages that fail to build from source. As an Ubuntu developer you will sometimes notice that suddenly packages don’t build any more because some library changed, something in the toolchain changed or whatever other crazy reason.

We are going to have two experts around for a Packaging Training session about “Fixing FTBFS” around: Michael Bienia and Stefan Potyra. If you always wanted to know what you can do to help out, this is one of the very very good opportunities.

• Where? #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net
• When? 18th September, 19:00 UTC

If you can’t make it, there’s going to be logs available afterwards.

Thanks Michael and Stefan!

Time for another exciting Packaging Training Session. This time is going to be a bit unusual, we are going to be very hands-on. We will have Colin Watson, Daniel Holbach, James Westby and Sébastien Bacher around who will review your patches, updates and other sponsoring requests while you are there and point out problems on IRC.

• Where: #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net
• When: 13th August, 12:00 UTC

Following up last week’s great session about Mozilla Packaging Techniques, Emmet Hikory (persia) will be giving a session about how to upgrade a package properly. The session will take place on August 6th, at 6:00 UTC in #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net. We hope to see you there. As always, if you are interested in viewing the logs for any of our previous sessions, they are available on the wiki.

Tomorrow at 30th July, 06:00 UTC Alexander Sack (asac) from the Ubuntu Mozilla Team will give a session on the techniques they use for packaging Mozilla packages. He will cover packaging of extensions, and how they make use of bzr to co-ordinate their work.
Join us in #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net.

After the session from the Mono team last week we have our friends from the Debian Perl team joining us to give you details on packaging Perl modules and how to get involved with their team. gwolf and jawnsy will present the session in #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net at 23rd July, 00:00 UTC.

In this week’s Packaging Training Session Jo Shields (directhex), of the Debian/Ubuntu Mono team, will be explaining how to package Mono applications and libraries. Come to #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net at 16th July, 18:00 UTC to find out more.

If you’re anything like me, you might have read something about the plans for debhelper 7 when they were still in the works. The idea of having a debian/rules file as simple as the following sounded pretty darn cool.

#!/usr/bin/make -f
%:
dh $@

Then Debian Sid was unfrozen and Ubuntu Karmic opened for development, and you found a packaging bug you wanted to fix or a package you work on was ready to be merged. Say you needed to run some code manually after a particular debhelper command is run, but the rules file was converted to use some of the new features in debhelper 7. You probably found your self wondering what happened to my rules file!

Well, in this week’s Packaging Training Session James Westby (james_w) will be answering just that question in his session, Debhelper v7: what happened to my rules file? Come to #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net at 09th July, 12:00 UTC to get the answer and learn how to take advantage of all the cool new stuff in dh 7.

… how something particular is done in the Ubuntu developers world? Or you have a question about a specific packaging problem?

No problem, there’s another great Packaging Training Session tomorrow. Come to #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net at 02nd July, 06:00 UTC and we’ll find answers to your questions together.

Also: find out what the last 15 sessions were about.

The unstoppable Nathan Handler is up next and will talk to you about using pbuilder and testing packages. For those who are awake at 25th June, 0:00 UTC, this is going to be a real treat. Where? As always: #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net. (If you can’t make it, check out the logs later on.)

Thanks again to Jonathan Thomas who did the last session about Packaging Plasmoids and KDE4 apps, logs are up at the usual place.

Our next Packaging Training Session is going to show Kubuntu a little love. This Thursday (June 18) at 18:00 UTC, MOTU Jonathan Thomas (JontheEchidna) will be leading a session on packaging KDE4 Apps and Plasmoids. Find out what it takes to pitch in and join the Kubuntu community. Learn the ways of the Kubuntu Ninjas!

Join us, as always, in #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net.

If KDE isn’t your thing, remember all the past Packaging Training Session logs are on the wiki. We’re also planning for next month. Is there a techinque or tool you want to share with your fellow K/Ubuntu contributors? Is there something that you’ve been hoping someone would lead a session on? Let us know. The commentsa are open!